Trio of Special Education Paraprofessionals to Retire Next Month

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Photo courtesy Cedar Hill ISD

Looking Forward To Retirement

(CEDAR HILL, TEXAS) They all grew up in Oak Cliff, moved to Cedar Hill, raised their children through Cedar Hill ISD, became involved as band parents and contributed a total of 74 years of service to CHISD.

And on Wednesday, June 9, CHISD Paraprofessionals Patricia Carpenter, Bettie Schumacher and Rebecca Vasquez will retire from their beloved school district.

They each remember moving to Cedar Hill when the community had a K-Mart and a single grocery store. Their friends from Dallas and Oak Cliff would even say, “you’re driving all the way to Cedar Hill?”

They bought homes adjacent to empty fields and prepared to raise children in CHISD.

Carpenter works in Behavior Support and has 28 years of service to the district. She’s worked at multiple campuses, but mostly the district’s secondary campuses.

“It’s amazing to see the expressions on scholars’ faces when they accomplish something,” Carpenter said.

Carpenter technically lives in Dallas, but it is the part that is zoned to CHISD. Both of her sons graduated from the district.

She originally worked in banking but then made the decision to join the school district in the early 1990s.

“I’m looking forward to gardening and tending to my plants and doing all of the things you couldn’t do when I was working,” Carpenter said.

23 Years Of Service to The District

Schumacher has 23 years of service to the district, having started in the late 1990s. She was a stay-at-home mother before that.

Schumacher originally worked at High Pointe Elementary and West Intermediate, and she’s been at Waterford Oaks Elementary for the past 21 years where she worked with special needs scholars.

Her daughters excelled academically at CHISD, with one graduating as the Salutatorian of her class and one finishing fifth in her class.

Schumacher’s original plan was to work until her daughters graduated from the district. But they’ve graduated from college, began careers as nurse practitioners, got married and had children of their own.

Schumacher, who lived in Cedar Hill but now lives in Midlothian, looks forward to spending time with her grandchildren, who live in Ellis County.

Vasquez also has 23 years of service to the district, having started at Belt Line and Joe Wilson intermediate campuses in Special Education resources, before making the transition to Waterford Oaks where she worked with Special Education scholars.

“I showed up at my son’s school one day to give him his lunch money and they asked me if I wanted a job,” said Vasquez, who previously worked in the HealthCare industry.

Vasquez still lives in Cedar Hill and all three of her children graduated from CHISD.

“Working with the kids and making a difference was special,” Vasquez said. “I became like a second parent to many of the scholars.”

Vasquez said she’ll spend retirement working on crafts and continuing her hobby of “writing books and books of poetry.”

And of course, she’ll spend time with her nine grandchildren who live in Cedar Hill and Grand Prairie, respectively.